


The Ladies Auxiliary

by LizBee



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Crack, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-04
Updated: 2007-07-04
Packaged: 2017-10-03 21:32:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LizBee/pseuds/LizBee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Martha meets some women with common interests.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ladies Auxiliary

 

It was a good day.  Martha was prepared to go so far as to call it a good year, although there were still four months to go in her personal countdown.  This was the day she'd arrived in Germany.  Thinking of that -- the cold, the wet, the grief -- she stood up to get another drink.

Lost in memories, she was unaware of the woman behind her until an unfamiliar voice said, "I hear you left the Doctor."

Martha spun around, expecting -- what?  Aliens?  Soldiers?  Lucy Saxon?  Yet another person who remembered her face from the terrorist alert and thought she was going to blow up London?

Instead, she was looking at a perfectly harmless middle-aged woman.  Well, maybe not perfectly harmless.  You couldn't grow up with Francine Jones without learning to question certain stereotypes.  But she wasn't holding a weapon, or taking over the world.  She just ... knew.

"Sarah Jane Smith," the woman said. "That's my name."

"Martha Jones."

"I know."  She rolled her eyes.  "Believe me, I know."

"...How?"

"He told me," she said simply.  "Turned up on my sofa the day after the election, babbling about the Master and Harold Saxon and his brilliant, amazing Martha and how she'd left because she thought she wasn't good enough."  Sarah Jane Smith pushed her way to the bar and ordered for both of them.  "Come and sit with us," she said.

'Us' turned out to be two other women, a grey-haired intellectual type and a faded blonde, who exchanged knowing glances when Sarah introduced her.

"So you left him, then," said Liz Shaw.

"Um--"

"Don't worry," Liz added quickly, "I did, too."

"Yes, and I never heard the end of it," sighed Jo.  "Well, not for a while.  'Oh, Liz would know what to do.'  'Liz was a dab hand at extracting radiation.'  'Liz wouldn't mix up my test tubes.'  I tell you, if I'd met you thirty years ago, Liz, I'd have spat in your eye."

"He really said I was brilliant and amazing?" Martha asked.  "Really?"

"Those were his exact adjectives," said Sarah.  "Have to admit, it made a nice change from having him hanging around moaning about his sweet, lost Rose and how she was all alone without him."

"All alone?"

"All alone," Sarah said, "except for her mother, her dead father, her on-off boyfriend -- who was a lovely boy, mind -- her dead father's incredible wealth ... well, after I while, I stopped feeling sorry for her.  Or the Doctor.  Nice girl, though.  Quite besotted, but otherwise nice."

"Now there's a mistake," said Jo gloomily, "falling for the Doctor.  I'm glad I never did it."

Martha became aware that amused looks were being traded over Jo's head.

"Jo," said Liz gently, "you married a man because he reminded you of--"

"Completely irrelevant," said Jo.

"I can't remember," said Sarah, "why'd you two break up?"

"Oh, he left me halfway up the Amazon to go and look at some bird-eating spiders."

"That's not so bad," Martha started to say.

"For six months," Jo added.  "And I ended up in hospital with a tropical infection, and did he leave the spiders to come and visit?  He did not."  Liz, Martha noticed, was mouthing along with Jo.  "Even the Doctor sent a get-well card -- well, UNIT sent a get-well card and he signed it.  The point is, I realised that I was never going to be as important as the monster spiders, and I wasn't going to spend my whole life trying."

"Quite right, too," said Liz. "What would have happened to my work if I'd put everything on hold to sort test tubes for the Doctor?"

"Well, we wouldn't have lost lab three when I got the tubes mixed up.  You know, the Brigadier still mentions that in his letters."

"I can't imagine what would have happened if I hadn't left the Doctor when I did," said Sarah.

Jo said, "I thought he left--"

"I was leaving anyway," said Sarah quickly.

"Oh."

"Because I was cold, and wet, and hypnotised--"

"I hated the hypnotising," said Jo.  "You know, I even voted for Saxon?"

"And I was fed up," said Sarah finally.

"Maybe that's why he put you off at Aberdeen," suggested Liz.  "Because you'd hurt his feelings.  He's very sensitive, you know.  Like a small child."

"Aberdeen's a hell of a lot better than the Amazon," Jo muttered.

Martha said, "So ... you three must see a lot of each other."

"Pretty often," said Liz.

"You get together to talk about the Doctor."   It was like she was seeing the future, and it involved turning into her mother. 

"We also fight crime," said Jo.  From beneath the table there came a thump.  It sounded remarkably like a boot accidentally-on-purpose hitting an ankle.  "Well, we do!"

"We occasionally deal in certain paranormal phenomena," said Liz.  "Freelance, you know."

"So ... like Torchwood but post-menopausal?" 

Sarah gave her a cold look.  "We prefer not to associate with that group," she said.

"Oh.  Sorry."

"What she means is," said Jo, "that we had a run in with the Cardiff branch, and words were exchanged, and bodily fluids, and then shots were fired, and all in all it was a bit like the Christmas party that everyone pretends never happened.  And don't go kicking me again," she added to Sarah, "she has the right to know."

"Right," said Martha.

"And now we'll never speak of it again," said Sarah.

"Fair enough."  Martha drained her glass.  "So do you roam the countryside in a van looking for mysteries, or does trouble come to you?"

"Oh, people seek us out," said Liz, "or Sarah hears about it through her ... um, sources."

There was a distant boom from outside.  Car alarms going off, people screaming, and maybe it was just a car accident, but the noise was forming into words, and the words were, "Oh my God, they're green!  They're killing us all!"

"And sometimes," said Sarah, standing up, "we just end up in the right place at the right time."

"Fair enough," said Martha, and she followed them outside to help save the world again.

 

end


End file.
